ISC Research: Case Study of Teachanywhere
Teachanywhere finds Essential Recruitment Market Support from ISC Research
Diane Jacoutot is General Manager of Teachanywhere. Here she talks about the links the company has with ISC Research and the benefits this has for the company:
"Teachanywhere has been in operation since 2005 and we are just entering into our 6th year. In launching the business we saw a gap in the market for bespoke recruitment. At the time people were doing mass recruitment and there were a couple of boutique recruitment companies focusing on specific areas such as Latin America. But what we saw was a chance to provide a recruitment solution that was a bit like a dating service which focused on understanding the needs of the client and understanding the school and then doing the same thing for teachers and matching the right school up with the right teacher.
"Our recruitment process was based upon a complex equation of intelligence gathering and based on a lot of work opening teachers' minds to possibilities available to them and it remains that way today. It's been through this route that we have become the market leader, placing close to 1,000 teachers per year and with over 20,000 teachers on our database.
"Business at Teachanywhere has grown ten times from our first operating year. When we first started it was very much a buyers market. Schools would place an ad in the TES and receive 20 to 40 applications and the salaries were usually quite high. With the growth of local international schools, the salaries are lower and the packages not so lucrative and it has got more difficult for these schools to recruit because of the expectations. So much of our job is very much to sell the concept of the school to potential teachers.
"Two markets have emerged very strongly in the international schools market. Those of the Middle East which has grown exponentially, and the Far East - China, Malaysia, Indonesia. These are countries that have taken hold of the global economy, mainly through oil and manufacturing and this has attracted a lot of expatriates as a result.
"Teachanywhere started working with ISC Research during our second year of operation. ISC Research provided and continues to provide a really important niche; that of supporting us with crucial information. The only other sources for this information are all in bits and pieces and the validity of the data is not good. Because the international market is changing so rapidly, this information provision has to be constantly updated and accurate which ISC Research achieves really well.
"There are also a range of key parameters to search the ISC data in specific ways. For example if we have an IB teacher looking for opportunities in Latin America, the ISC Research data allows us to do a check to get a quick gauge of the market opportunities and this is extremely helpful. As for the ISC Research Newsfeed; there is no other source for that data all in one place. Because we are operating on an international scale in a market that is growing so rapidly, having this news so accessible is really valuable."